2018 was a year of disruption in the TV industry, as Korean and Japanese TV brands pursuing differentiation and profitability, while traditional Chinese brands pursue growth outside of China. At the same time, Xiaomi brings aggressive disruption to the domestic China market.

4K and UHD are much misused words that can mean a lot of different things depending on who you ask. This ebook examines the facts and figures behind the rise of 4K and UHD and provides new data and insights on the UHD global status, shipment forecasts and media consumption.

On December 1st, the first 4K and 8K TV broadcasts were launched by NHK, available via two satellite channels. 4K broadcasts will be available for 18 hours daily while 8K will be available for 12 hours daily. These broadcasts will include HDR (HLG format), wide color gamut (BT.2020) and in 22.2 channel audio.

The growth of the energy storage market offers suppliers of inverters a huge growth opportunity, across a wide range of applications and regions. Many existing providers of solar inverters and industrial power electronics have moved to take a leading position in this growth market.

More than a third of video subscribers claim ultra-high-definition (UHD) content is an important criterion in their choice of video services, across five markets surveyed. Among households with both pay TV and online video subscriptions, that preference rises to 50 percent.

IFA is the main CE show for Europe, with a very wide range of products on show. In recent years it has introduced white goods and these now account easily for a third of the show.
Typically, retailers use IFA to decide their stocks for the peak selling season in the run-up to Christmas. Black Friday has appeared in recent years even though Thanksgiving is meaningless in Europe and not observed as a festival or holiday.
Buyers from the Middle East and Africa are also present and the show is important for their regions too.
Unusually, ordinary people are able to visit for €17.50.
Recent years have seen TV products de-emphasised as the business has matured and the market moved to a global timetable.
Samsung, LGE and Panasonic now have heavy coverage of home appliances on their booths.
2018 saw the launch by Samsung of its 8K TV range.
Products will ship in October 2018 in Europe and North America.
With the strong emphasis on OLED, a casual observer would have been surprised to discover that LCD accounts for 96% of TV shipments and 86% of revenues in Western Europe.

For journalists who follow the latest news and trends in consumer electronics, IHS Markit analysts will be available for commentary ahead of and onsite at IFA 2018 in Berlin, Germany, from August 31 to September 5, 2018.

After a weak launch in 2017, Amazon has struck a deal with Best Buy to relaunch the Fire TV platform. Starting summer 2018, Best Buy will start selling Toshiba and Insignia Fire TV Edition Smart TVs, which will also be available on Amazon.com with Best Buy as a third party seller.
This has several implications for the smart TV space, but especially for companies like Roku because Insignia was previously using the Roku TV platform and was one of the larger partners last year. For Amazon, it also represents a recognition that the brick and mortar space is still very important for some categories where consumers still prefer to "kick the tires" before purchasing.

CES 2018 has ended, and once again, TVs were one of the headline product categories of the show. IHS Markit analysts spent many hours attending press conferences, meeting with companies both on and off the showfloor, and discussing the important highlights. This report represents our key takeaways from the show as they relate to TV.
Please download the PowerPoint presentation to see the analysis and pictures from CES

Looking ahead to CES 2018, we have done some scenario analysis around Samsung's strategic choices in the TV business to counterattack the momentum that OLED gained in 2017. Samsung made a strategic decision against investing in OLED panels for TV, despite considerable experience and knowledge around OLED for smartphones. What choices do they have in the premium TV category for 2018 and beyond?

China’s white-goods markets are characterized by maturity with lower or negative growth ratio in unit shipments. Domestic markets will grow slightly in unit shipments and export segments will fluctuate over the next five years. Fortunately, high-end and diversified white goods markets will grow rapidly. Makers have opportunities to increase sales revenue and to improve profit performance through expanding market share within...